


in any other world

by fracturedvaels



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Mage Hawke - Freeform, Warden Carver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 09:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4175067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fracturedvaels/pseuds/fracturedvaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Hawke and the gang, through Orana's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in any other world

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Written because of a random ask on tumblr. I love Orana and hope she comes back, she's so lovely.

Freedom is strange, and it is this:

Waking up at three am, and starting on breakfast. It is going to fetch fruits that do not grow out this far south. It is going to look for seasonings that do not exist and teas that the Hawke family does not keep. It is being worried for an hour, pacing back and forth, before remembering where she is – remembering _who_ she is now, rather than who she _was_ then.

Freedom is climbing back into bed for another hour, two hours, three hours. Freedom is waking up, and going back to sleep several times, blinking away the sun and folding into dreams.

Freedom is strange. And it is this.

It is Hawke's mother waking her up at ten am, and helping her get dressed. It was warm, worn hands – the hands of a grandmother – helping her to tie her dresses and brush and braid her hair. It is hearing _I used to have a daughter_ , with a sorrow that Orana doesn't think she can touch, but she knows she can empathize, and it is hearing _she would have loved you_ and knowing that the love would be more like Hawke's love and nothing like her old Mistress. Nothing like Hadriana.

Freedom is this; it is lute lessons and mannerism lessons. It is gold in her pocket, and a lovely man from the Chantry taking her to the market to buy whatever she wants. Freedom is seeing him nod and smile when she touches pretty ribbons or scraps of cloth that she does not need, but that she can have anyway, because Hawke said it was okay. Freedom is a cup of sugared almonds, all to herself, and a book that she can't read yet, but Hawke promises to help her with.

It is in the free evenings when there is no business at the temple, and the pretty brother from before teaches her to read and write. It is Fenris in his softer moments, his kinder moments, showing her how to hold the quill and how to loop her A's and her O's. It is praise and rewards in the form of a journal and a new bracelet. It is visiting Merrill – with Fenris trailing behind, silent but sullen, clearly not happy with having to play bodyguard.

Freedom is strange and heavy. And it comes with other things, too. Not always pleasant. It's the anger she feels when Fenris makes an offhand comment. It's the repulsion when Isabela winks at her, or cracks a joke that makes her skin crawl; it's the remorse when she winces or makes a face, and Isabela looks wounded and apologizes.

It is dealing with her misery when Hawke's mother is murdered. It is mourning by herself, for a time, thinking she has no right to feel this upset about it. It is her hand hovering over a comb, and then a ribbon, and trying to tie her dress and failing.

Freedom is sad. Her heart hurts for them all: for Isabela, who should be sailing free.

For Varric, so tired and worn out.

For Merrill, who cries for her clan sometimes, and has to stop lessons on history to go wash her face every so often.

For Aveline, who still looks longingly at dark haired Templar men, with a sad, strange look that Orana doesn't understand.

For Sebastian, who lets people use him and lie to him because he thinks it is the kind of love he deserves.

For Fenris, who looks at Hawke with moon-eyes, who trembles when anyone touches him, who wears a red scarf tied around his wrist.

For Carver, who she meets only briefly, who she knows only every few months, but who smiles when he looks at her and furiously rubs his eyes when she turns away. He can't look Hawke in the eye, ever, and sometimes she hears him crying when he stays in the house. They never fight, though to hear the others talk they should be at each other's throats every second. She sees only tenderness and affection and the bitterest distance between them.

(Sometimes, he braids her hair. Just like Hawke's mother used to do. His hands are bigger, worn from battle, and one day he tells her he is turning 23 and she can't help thinking that someone as tall and broad shouldered and sad is so much younger than her and - )

And her heart hurts for Hawke. Watching them all. How he gets Donnic and Aveline together; and how he gets a small boat in a bottle for Isabela, how at ease she is laughing about it with him. She sees how often Varric is over, how he trusts Hawke with the pages he writes (and sometimes he trusts Orana, too, and she likes the love story about the warrior elf woman and the heroic princess the best), and Hawke does alright by him. And how he listens to Anders talk, and provides a warm room when it's too cold, and sends Orana through the wine cellars with food and herbs (herbs that, as far as she knows, are not technically legal in Kirkwall).

She sees how he is with Merrill, and how he never talks down to her or babies her like some of the others. How he has no real reason to be interested in her religion, in her culture, but how he tells her that it has worth and purpose and that she's doing something incredible.

Orana especially likes when he talks to Sebastian; he's easy on the eyes, like Fenris, and kind in ways that Fenris doesn't quite know how to be yet. And he's so _sad_. He sounds lost, like the princess in Varric's story, and he doubts if he's worth anything sometimes, but Hawke reassures him all the time.

And Fenris. She likes when Fenris is over. Because they never touch, and they hardly talk about the night they shared, but Fenris is softer when Hawke is with him, and Hawke seems larger than life, and he _smiles_ more and he's _open_ more and there's a strange and infectious happiness that Orana finds she comes to crave.

But none of them hurt him quite like Carver, who always seems to come first. Carver, who defers to Hawke in all things when they're together, who is quiet and she thinks it's meant to be a stern kind of quiet but it just comes off as a fragile kind of quiet. His eyes are the saddest of them all, and he flinches whenever Hawke goes to touch him or hug him and it's not the same as when Fenris or Orana flinch but it hurts to see and it hurts to remember what it dredges up in her.

And some days, when Orana watches them, she wonders. She _hopes_. She clutches the book about the elf and the princess and she wonders if she can have something like this one day; if she can have friends like Hawke has, and people who look up to her. If she can be strong for people like Carver and Sebastian, and kind for people like Anders and Merrill, and helpful for people like Aveline and Isabela and Varric.

And vulnerable, for someone like Fenris. She wants that, too, she realizes one day; she wants someone she feels safe being open like Hawke is open with him.

Mostly, she wants to be a hero. An adventurer. She wants to have stories she can tell that don't start in Tevinter, or with Hadriana, or with Danarius. She wants _real_ stories. And she practices with a set of daggers that Isabela gives her, and she imagines herself to be a charming and witty elf warrior woman, cutting her way through dangerous hordes to save her love.

Freedom is strange. And it is this. And Orana is learning that it's okay to be strange this way.


End file.
